


Charity Work

by Wanderlust_Novadust



Category: Hellsing, Hellsing Ultimate
Genre: Alucard being a dad, Alucard dad vibes, Fluff, Fluffy, I Don't Know When This Would've Taken Place I Just Wrote It Because I Wanted To, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, No Romance, Okay not really an OC but like a one off character, child oc, cope fic, rescue the abused kid time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 01:18:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19346605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderlust_Novadust/pseuds/Wanderlust_Novadust
Summary: Alucard did not often preform what humans would consider charity work without years of explaining to clarify the niggling details of how it all worked, but that didn't matter to him.





	Charity Work

Leaving the mansion was not common from Alucard. Simply ascending the basement stairs for a reason that was not related to feeding, a job, or interaction with his trainee vampire was nearly unheard of, but especially leaving the entire mansion. When it did, he always gave the same reason to Walter at the door, that once in a blue moon time it would happen:

“I’m going on a walk.”

This walk led Alucard away from the seclusion, though it hardly took long. Between wide strides and how many small towns and villages there were in the area, it never took him long to find people. It was the dead of night, and nobody was awake, but the tiny bustles of activity he would spot as he walked just among the trees and close enough to spot the houses and their windows was always a treat. The woman who woke up to go check on her young ones, the man who was too wired to sleep and drinking something to ease his troubled mind, the child climbing out their window…

“Hang on now,” he commented quietly to himself.

Running away, at this hour? They had a backpack over their shoulders, and they were climbing out the ground floor window from what looked like their (soon to be former) living room. Alucard watched, ever curious as they began to run their little lungs out toward the woods. Not toward Alucard specifically. There was enough woods around that they were moving no where particularly close to him at all, just simply running into a mad dash to the trees. As they entered and the rustle of the brush and bushes rang out, Alucard considered for a moment if he should do anything. Rescuing Seras had been quite the adventure after all. After a moment consideration, he had vanished from his previous spot of watching.

“Fuck, just have to keep going,” the kid told themselves.

They were running out of breath quick, skinny and undeveloped limbs not ready for the sprint they embarked on. The kid would’ve slowed down and eventually stopped if the next thing they experienced hadn’t been sharp, agonizing pain and cold in their ankle.

They shrieked in pain, ass hitting the ground fast after. They managed to stumble back instead of forward, but that didn’t save them a moment of whimpering. Their foot had been rather stuck in a bear trap. As they tried to survey the damage, they found it was terrible… The jaws of the trap were sunk almost half way through their ankle. Grabbing onto the trap and trying to pry apart the maw, it was no good. It hurt so badly to even move it that their hands weakly let go and all they could do was swallow their own cries. Tears burned at their eyes as suddenly an escape attempt became a horrific failure.

That was when Alucard re-entered. A large shadow, towering over the small ten to thirteen year old in shorts and a hoodie. They looked up as they registered it was no tree casting a shadow on a finely moonlit night.

“Well, you seem to have gotten in far over your head,” Alucard remarked.

The kid didn’t respond, merely quivering and trembling in their spot. Thus, Alucard decided to try and provoke a response. Gage them, see what their issue was (beyond the obvious physical injury they’d just sustained.)

“Allow me,” he said as he leaned down. 

“Wait!”

He did. Alucard stopped, hand just landing on the jaws of the trap and awaiting the young one to continue.

“If you do that, I’ll bleed out. Or—or it’ll even just hurt,” they protested.

“I can handle the injuries, little one. It’s best done like an adhesive bandage.”

They didn’t speak up again, and sure enough, Alucard opened the trap. They were quick to try and stand, but they couldn’t. They very quickly found that they were entirely unable, and were leaning onto a tree in moments.

“You’re highly injured.”

“I know! How would I not?”

Alucard sighed before lending a hand out to the younger boy. They looked at the hand perplexed before looking up at Alucard.

“Please, allow me.”

They took his hand, and they were yanked over in one fell swoop. After the stumbling, Alucard got down to one knee and looked over the wound. As a self-healing creature, he did not carry first-aid kits on hand normally. Alucard, however, has the unnatural void of his coat and creation. Pulling out some bandages, he got to temporarily patching the leg up, the boy just left staring.

“Why’re you doing this,” he asked as Alucard finished.

“You were trapped. Should I have left you,” he asked back.

“Well! I wouldn’t have wanted you to leave me. That doesn’t answer my question though!”

“You looked lost, and injured. Is it a crime to want to help someone?”

“Well… No.”

Alucard began to walk away, attracting the boy’s immediate gaze. He turned to watch, Alucard not walking particularly fast away. If anything, for Alucard at least, he was leaving very slowly. Wide strides had been reduced to short steps, meant almost entirely to bring attention to the fact he was on his way out.

“Where are you going?”

“Well, home. Where you should be heading as well,” Alucard chided.

“I’m not going back there,” the boy said firmly.

This intrigued Alucard. The answers he was getting to his questions were stacking up quickly. He turned back to the child, deciding to hear him out. What could be his reasoning? Why was there no home for him?

“You aren’t going back there, you say? Is your home so terrible?”

“Yes, it is! They hate me there,” The boy began. “I don’t know if I should be telling you… I don’t know if you really care.”

Alucard did not vocally answer that, but it didn’t mean he had no answer in the first place. He looked around a moment before seeing a fallen tree. He walked over to it, sitting down before looking at the child again, as if to say “sit with me.” They understood.

“They don’t respect me back there,” they said just before limping over and hoisting themselves up onto the log next to Alucard with a bit of his help. “They treat me like I’m nothing. They won’t even accept me for who I am.”

“Who you are,” Alucard asked gently, hoping for them to elaborate.

The child shrunk in before answering, “Um… A boy.”

“They wanted a daughter,” Alucard said, understanding slowly the situation he’d stumbled upon.

“You could say that.”

With that, Alucard understood all at once. Before the child could continue, he knew what to do. 

“What is your name, boy?”

He seemed to hesitate, as though he didn’t know. “Theodore! My name is Theodore.”

“Theodore… What a strong name.”

“Thank you,” Theodore replied quietly.

“Could I ask you a few questions?”

Theodore shifted uncomfortably a few times before looking up at him. “I suppose.”

“What exactly were they doing? You say they don’t respect you.”

“They well… They were calling me a girly name, and girly things. They wanted to make me a daughter you see, and they weren’t ready to accept that maybe I was born different. Maybe… Maybe god made a mistake, and he made me a little weird.”

“What about other things,” Alucard prodded, knowing how this rodeo normally shook out. He was noting what bruising he could see from the half pulled up sleeves, how the injury on his ankle may not have been the only reason he was limping. How skinny he was as well… Alucard was very aware of how these things tended to go. Theodore had not been traveling the woods long enough for them to occur naturally, their location? A few of them were clearly the sorts of bruises that happen when you are roughly grabbed by someone, “get back here” bruises as some call them.

“They… They just don’t like me,” is how Theodore left it.

Alucard would not force a further answer. He knew all he had to. Again and again, he watched humans construct other rituals to hurt one another. Perhaps it was a lack of understanding, perhaps if Alucard could sit the boy’s parents down and have a nice long chat, they’d know that someone born the wrong sex would be the furthest from the weird in the world. Alucard had met werewolves and fae, creatures neither man nor woman, and some who one could call both (or even call themselves both gladly.) Humans did this so often.

“Hey, sir? You’re staring off.”

“I apologize,” Alucard replied, still trying to decide how to handle Theodore.

That was always the hard part, you see. The handling of cases like this. Alucard could waltz in with Theodore and tell off the entire household. He could consume the ones beating him, he could threaten them into acceptance, and he could do all of this and watch Theodore’s amazed face. He’d probably tell all the other children about his new vampire, who guards him and makes sure people respect him, even if Alucard only did something like that once. The struggle is that this is hardly ever a solution.

When humans hate things the way that he’s assuming Theodore’s parents hate him, Alucard could scare them into quiet submission and temporary acceptance, but the moment something like a vote on how to handle individuals of Theodore’s predicament comes up—the tune changes. The reluctant support is gone, in favor of making sure the child and everyone like them is unable to get help, or jobs, or comfortable living—or even a life at all. Alucard didn’t want to put a child through those sorts of loops.

“You aren’t going home then,” Alucard asked. It was a clunky way to lead into this, and he knew… But he’d been a little too caught up in himself.

“Don’t have one to go home to.”

“I see… Come with me.”

Alucard got up, but Theodore stayed on the log. Then he realized, he turned to the child, remembering the bear trap. With that, he sighed. How did he do this in a way that wouldn’t make Theodore feel absolutely belittled, and how much did he really care at the moment? Theodore seemed to be about to pipe up about the wounds, but Alucard was already grabbing them. He was twice Theodore’s size, and he’d carried guns heavier than him. Perhaps not being fed could be something to be added to the list of terrible things his former family may have done to him?

“Hey! What—I can’t walk?”

“If I put you down, you would complain about your foot.”

“Well, yeah, but… This is just embarrassing.”

Alucard laughed as he began walking off. Theodore was just left pouting, not entirely able to fight back. He could! He very well could squirm and kick, and he was very good at both of those things… But there wasn’t much of a point. If he was going go to chop him up, Theodore figured he’d have done it by now.

 

Theodore didn’t remember how long the walk took. When he woke up in the darkness of what looked like an old, stone walled basement, he thought he’d die. When had he fallen asleep? It must’ve been on the walk. Did Alucard knock him out? Obviously not, Theodore decided, as he would’ve remembered that (or so he was sure.)

When he got up from the make-shift bed on the ground, he began to understand the situation a bit better. Yes, he’d woken up aching from the hard ground, but there was a small heater placed near by, and he’d had a pillow and blanket. Theodore could at least gather from this that he wasn’t going to be cut into tiny pieces and stored somewhere for later, or to never be seen again.

“You’re up,” Alucard’s voice called from the middle of the room.

“Where am I?”

Theodore had started walking over, not noticing the lack of wounds nor limp as he approached. When he got to Alucard’s fanciful throne, Alucard looked down at him. How should he explain…?

“You’re in my home. A safe place, for now.”

Work humans considered charity was not like him. Integra would be far more ready to believe he had a gentle soul living along side insatiable sadism if she’d just remove herself from her very human lens of looking at him. It’s the folly of humans, however. They never realize things until it’s all too late to say thing one about whatever had flown over their head so long. If only they could reach up and catch the ideas as they passed.

“Where are you taking me then?”

“Patience, young man.”

Theodore looked understandably panicked by that response, but Alucard was tired. Being awake in the day took a good deal out of him, and he’d not even fed yet today. The sacrifices he made for innocent creatures were piling up, and honestly? He was taking a break after this. How he’d spend it, he had no idea, but he was doing it.

“Can I go outside,” Theodore asked before silence could truly settle over the air.

“No. You cannot.”

Finally, as Theodore leaned his weight around and fidgeted in his spot, it hit him. He sat down, attracting Alucard’s attention specifically where Theodore was looking. Theodore felt over where there should’ve only been bandages, blood, and pain to find absolutely none of those things. There was hardly even a scar.

“Sir?”

“You’re all patched up. Such an impressive young man, healing so quickly.”

Theodore was young. Alucard was realizing that thinking he could’ve been thirteen was generous, and he easily could’ve just been ten or eleven. Even as young and inexperienced as Theodore was though, the look on his face told Alucard that he was very aware of the fact that healing over night from something that bad was impossible.

“You didn’t take me to a hospital?”

Doctors, Theodore though, may have been able to do things like this. He’d think it was mean, if they could fix big things like this, but would make other people wait in casts and bandages—but maybe that was the rationalization. Alucard had taken him to a doctor… Except, he most certainly hadn’t.

“I did not. I took care of that all on my own.”

Alucard was watching the gears turn, the panic rise, he could feel it even. Where they were, Alucard could feel absolutely every emotion that flickered around the air—like cracks of lightning that left different impressions and colors fading in and out of vision and mind. Amazement had skipped right over Theodore, and he’d gone for panic and disblief.

“I don’t believe you!”

“Really? Walk around some more.”

“I will!”

Theodore got up, jumping away. He hopped a few steps in a reckless skip, finding that he felt none of the before pain. Not even a bit of the give he’d been expecting accompanied him. Theodore stopped a moment, looking over and seeing Alucard withholding laughter. Theodore’s cheeks puffed out, he couldn’t help but be angry! Was he laughing at him? He took a few more wide steps before jumping forward a few more times. It wasn’t long though that Alucard’s mild snicker and soft chuckled turned to silence, Theodore tripping over himself and crashing into the stone floor.

He heard him whimper and whine a bit before getting up and rushing over. The roots that flashed out over him and into Alucard told him in moments exactly what had happened. Alucard hovered over him a moment, merely flexing his powers a bit as the twisted ankle straightened out and mended all neat and proper. Theodore sat up as it happened, and got to witness it first hand as the final bits and pieces all fell into a functional and painless place.

“You… You can heal things.”

“I can do a lot of things, Theodore.”

“Really?”

Now, the child-like joy and wonder Alucard had been waiting for set in. Torches lit all across the walls in eruptions of cyan and sky blue, igniting the whole area in cool light. This got Theodore hopping up to his feet, all kinds of excited. He waved his hands just a bit as Alucard turned away, walking back over to his throne. He sat down with a heavy heart, trying to decide how to approach this calmly.

“Have you noticed anything else that’s different?”

Theodore looked at his clothes. Well, he’d noticed by now he wasn’t forced into a training bra, but feeling over his chest… There was none of the previous development at all. He rushed over to Alucard’s throne, looking up at him as he leaned from his toes onto the arm rest, arched like a cat to look up at him.

“Sir, are you magic?”

“You could say that,” Alucard said with a light chuckle.

Theodore leaned a little closer, looking ready to burst out of his own skin enthusiasm for the question. All prior hesitation to in-depth explain his situation had gone out the window (or at least, this specific facet of his situation.) He spoke quietly, as though if anyone but himself and Alucard heard, they’d come and take away all of Alucard’s magical, little changes.

“Did you make me a real boy?”

“You were always a real boy,” Alucard said with a soft sigh. “You just didn’t have a chance to be one where you were. You can be a boy here, however… You can be whatever you want.”

Theodore looked ready to cry.

“In fact…”

The door up above swung open, a short flight of stairs making itself known. Theodore didn’t ask questions, rushing off and up the stairs. As he came out, he had to hold an arm up over his eyes to protect from the brightness of the sun. As his vision adjusted, he saw open field, ponds, forest further back. Alucard was back in moments to finish his dreamy statement.

“You can also do whatever you want here, too.”

 

“You ate a chid,” Seras asked in loud horror.

“It’s not as you think, Seras.”

She crossed her arms, not entirely wanting to hear him explain away a child homicide.

“He didn’t want to be stuck that way.”

“He? You drink all of her up, but you can’t even pay attention to what kind of kid you’re eating?”

“You’re not listening, Seras,” Alucard said—tired of this evening’s chatter.

“He did not want to be stuck how, or where he was.”

Seras’s face went through a few changes… But it landed at understanding. She uncrossed her arms, slumping a bit where she sat.

“Where is the kid now…?”

“Somewhere God wouldn’t have taken him, I guarantee you.”


End file.
